


Collapse

by red2007



Series: Forehead Kisses [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Forehead Kisses, Movie: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27018988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red2007/pseuds/red2007
Summary: Twenty minutes to end a partnership of half a decade.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Forehead Kisses [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872502
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	Collapse

**Author's Note:**

> I started this about 5 weeks ago but today is the 3 year anniversary of the first time I saw FTF so, here we are.

She had an 8pm reservation at Clydes to break the news to her mother, a 7:20 direct flight from Dulles to Salt Lake and a claim ticket for a dry-cleaning pickup she wouldn’t be present for in two days time.

She hadn’t even showered. Changed her clothes.

Much later, after the chill abated and memories of this entire day were dulled to a foggy wisp of colors and sounds and unplaced raw emotion, she would be able to recognize her stubborn subconscious, refusing to leave the air of insubordination at the creases of her blouse, the whiff of adventure in her grit-covered skin.

Her unwillingness to say goodbye only afforded him 20 minutes in their whirlwind day, the muscles in her legs and her jaw already weary from lack of sleep and overuse.

Twenty minutes to end a partnership of half a decade.

To soothe a soul worn from abandonment and neglect.

To appease proprietary farewells and cursory platitudes.

She’d expected anger and accusations, hail Mary passes. She hadn’t counted on declarations or expected to see her own tamped down anguish in the droop of his eyebrows or the downturned line of his perfect lips. The tears weighing down her lower lids the final betrayal, crumbling the wall of protection she’d been girding her progress with, and she buried herself in a solid, steadfast cotton covered shoulder.

Forever in hallways with the ghosts of his abandonment maligning his features. Knowing she now could claim a ghost, knifing the rubble of her crumbling defenses and withering her resolve.

She couldn’t leave him in that state. Doubted she ever could. Surrendering, she pulled his head down. Her lips on his forehead for a moment, perhaps a lifetime and she his hopeful healer. Stitching his wounds with the pressure and promise, binding his breaks with her breath and intimacy.

Foreheads molded together, sharing strength, she wondered at the labor of restoring her defenses around them both.


End file.
